The Sharyl Attkisson approach

In light of the Washington press corps’ current distrust of the Obama administration, much of Attkisson’s reporting now seems prescient — the sort of thing one might expect CBS News executives to celebrate publicly.

Instead, suspicions of partisanship have made Attkisson a polarizing figure within her own organization.

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CBS News President David Rhodes is said to value her diligence, but there are others, most notably Pat Shevlin, the executive producer of CBS Evening News, who are wary of her motives and have even dismissed her, in private, as a partisan carrying water for Republicans.

Alternatively, some sources suggested that Shevlin’s own political bias, which they described as liberal, was to blame.

Either way, the tension has caused Attkisson to feel that she’s been marginalized at the network, sources said.

“She doesn’t get much love here,” one CBS News source told POLITICO. “Part of that is her fault — she doesn’t have a filter on when to push certain stories, when to say that’s not big enough for the Evening News.

“She is a dogged reporter, a good reporter, but some people here get the feeling she goes too far — that she’s agenda-driven,” another source said. “She’s not afraid, and that’s a great thing. But sometimes, people here believe she has to be reined in.”

As of last month, Attkisson has been in informal talks to leave CBS News ahead of contract, though sources tell POLITICO that the network is making a concerted effort to keep her there. CBS News spokesperson Sonya McNair said that Shevlin and Rhodes would not be available to comment.

In fact, Attkisson has written many stories about GOP failures as well as Democratic ones. Her 2008 investigations into the so-called “TARP Bait & Switch” under then-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson won her an Emmy award for investigative reporting. In March 2012, she reported on GOP freshmen betraying their promises of reforming Washington and instead hobnobbing with fundraisers at a resort in Key Largo.

Attkisson has said before that she is not a Republican reporter, and sources at CBS News said that the effort to cast Attkisson as an agenda-driven reporter were misplaced.

“You ask what makes Sharyl tick: It’s that she’s highly skeptical of people in power, and right now the people in power are Democrats,” one source said. “I don’t see her as an agenda-driven reporter.”

“[Attkisson believes] that public officials and federal officials work for us, and that it’s gotten to the point where they don’t believe that they should be held accountable,” another source said. “That’s not partisan.”